The Long War Posture
Blurring the Lines of Demarcation between War and Peace
by Gregory D. Foster, Baltimore Sun

The American public is being lulled into a false sense of insecurity. And insecurity, constructed or real, is what gives those in power - our purported protectors - their self-righteous aura of indispensability.

President Bush; Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld; the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Peter Pace; the head of the U.S. Central Command, Gen. John P. Abizaid; and the recently released Quadrennial Defense Review, among other authoritative purveyors of received wisdom, all warn us that we're embroiled in - and destined to be further subjected to - what is to be known as a Long War.

America's ruling elite has once again opted for rhetorical contrivance and the politics of fear over the bold, creative strategic leadership expected of the world's self-proclaimed only superpower.

Mesmerized by their own illogic, they have failed to recognize that perpetual war can never lead to the ideal state of perpetual peace that Immanuel Kant spoke of over two centuries ago. It can only drain us of all we are and possess.

(Gregory D. Foster is a professor at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces at the National Defense University)

Full story here.